The Inevitable

July 7, 2008 1:24 PM

Free Government is a directly-controlled, open-source, entirely transparent political "meta-party" in the United States that intends to field candidates guided exclusively by online polling and user-drafted bills. Recruiting of candidates has already begun.
posted by setanor (23 comments total)

If internet enabled-eggheads were capable of manipulating actual reality at this level Firefly would be on its sixth season and the third movie would be in post-production. Here comes another wankery minor party at best.
posted by nanojath at 1:42 PM on July 7, 2008 [1 favorite]

Go ahead, throw your vote away!
posted by blue_beetle at 1:43 PM on July 7, 2008

It's not a "meta-party". It's an organization championing the idea and practice of direct democracy.

But what I don't understand is that if they're so keen on direct democracy, they have this "adviser" system in their FAQ that sounds an awful lot like representative democracy, although a fluid one.
posted by demiurge at 1:43 PM on July 7, 2008

"Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my constituents from the great state of Mudkips, formerly known as Vermont, I'd like to introduce a bill to change the national motto of these United States from "In God We Trust" to "Longcat is Long."
posted by bunnytricks at 1:52 PM on July 7, 2008 [7 favorites]

In the land of the entirely transparent political "meta-party," Griffin will be King.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:58 PM on July 7, 2008

And that my son, is how Rick Astley became president.
posted by drezdn at 2:00 PM on July 7, 2008 [9 favorites]

How do you prove that you're their ideal candidate? Do everything you're told to? Have a long history of order following? Be subservient chicken?
posted by drezdn at 2:02 PM on July 7, 2008

...intends to field candidates guided exclusively by online polling and user-drafted bills.

Because the majority is always in the right. Always.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:08 PM on July 7, 2008

If you'd like authorize a Preemptive Strike, text WAR now.
posted by Kabanos at 2:11 PM on July 7, 2008 [2 favorites]

LOLPROLES
posted by orthogonality at 2:12 PM on July 7, 2008

Online polling? You mean like the online poll that picked "Hank the angry drunken dwarf" as the most handsome man on earth?
posted by Class Goat at 2:23 PM on July 7, 2008

In an astonishing coincidence, my own guiding philosophical lights are Fethullah Gülen, L. Ron Hubbard, and Colbert rox, lol. I hope you'll all give your time and effort to help me become your next King of Australia [citation needed].
posted by ormondsacker at 2:54 PM on July 7, 2008

Epontsyerical!
posted by cashman at 2:55 PM on July 7, 2008

Nice rip-off of the Wordpress site design.
posted by sciurus at 2:57 PM on July 7, 2008

So major issues will be decided by the roll of 20-sided dice?
posted by maxwelton at 3:15 PM on July 7, 2008

I don't trust direct democracy, too easy to manipulate one shot elections. Instead use direct democracy for decisions which must be made repeatedly and everyone feels the consequences. To me, this suggests that the best place for direct democracy is budget allocations (see below). Deliberative democracy is a far far better idea. It might be interesting to run a party by those means.


An ideal government would have the following features : Four separate branches executive, legislative, deliberative, and judicial. Executive and legislative are somewhat subdivided separated by function.

(a) The executive branch wouldn't have any veto power. Instead all laws must pass a deliberative jury trial before becoming law, i.e. legislators voting for or against the bill would also nominate advocates for or against the bill who would then argue in front of a jury of say 100 randomly chosen ordinary voters, who would vote on the law as a whole and individual line items. Some bills could take effect before passing this trial, with presidential approval, but all bills must still pass or be stricken. The court's power to interpret would be limited by giving them the power & obligation to demand that the deliberative branch answer a question about a law via jury trial.

(b) The federal government wouldn't have much direct power, but there would be a senate what would have the power to create ministries, whose charters could grant them powers beyond the federal government. Each ministry would have its own directly elected legislative body (so the senate isn't granting itself more power). Individual agencies would be assigned to ministries (or pairs). Citizens could sue for miss-use of these charters, miss allocation of agencies to ministries, etc.

(c) Mathematically somewhat different election systems should be used for different elected officials, president, senators, and ministers---this impedes party "optimization". Say some condorcet method for president, multi winner STV / IRV for senators, and maybe ministers would have unequal votes based upon the number of people voting for them.

(d) Budget allocation among the ministers should be determined by an extreme form of direct democracy : every voter selects a party's proposed budget, or proposes their own budget, and the actual budget is determined by averaging over all votes over the last 3-5 years. Ministries could give or loan one another money, issue bonds, etc., just like state governments, so they could correct matters if the voters go a little crazy, but such actions would require senate approval. Finally, only ministries could owe money, not the senate or core government, meaning going into serious debt effects the future of that ministry's domain.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:45 PM on July 7, 2008 [1 favorite]

Re: FPP

Yes, but will it scale?
posted by klangklangston at 3:55 PM on July 7, 2008

With purchase of government of equal or lesser value.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 5:02 PM on July 7, 2008 [3 favorites]

This is a perfect job for Ron Paul!
posted by octobersurprise at 8:06 PM on July 7, 2008

And that my son, is how Rick Astley became president.

I for one would look forward to having a president who would never give us up, let us down, run around or desert us; make us cry, say goodbye, tell a lie or hurt us.
posted by nanojath at 8:41 PM on July 7, 2008 [3 favorites]

Yep. Except for the 'say goodbye' bit. That, I rather like to see a president do.
posted by eritain at 12:52 AM on July 8, 2008

Jeffburdges is spot on.

This is not the first time one of these parties has been created. There was one in the UK a while back, and I think in Australia, too. They tend to fail because people trust their own judgement but not that of others' (see also: why it's OK for me to break the speed limit, but not for you to).
posted by athenian at 2:53 AM on July 8, 2008

Any party like this that gained sufficient adherents to have any influence will inevitably devolve into multiple competing sub-parties, pushing it left, right, or center (or some other direction entirely) one or more of which will, at any given time, have enough of a voting bloc to sway the party's policies and candidates in its own favored direction.

If the description above reminds you of anything else, you're not mistaken.
posted by rusty at 8:48 AM on July 8, 2008